Estuarine, intertidal, mixed coarse, partly enclosed, eulittoral

This is the most commonly mapped habitat type in the Salish Sea. Most estuarine intertidal sites in the Puget Trough have a poorly sorted substratum of mixed cobble, gravel, and sand, often distributed in patches along the beach. Some small boulders, which are relatively stable, often overlie other substrata. As in the corresponding marine habitat type, organisms in these habitats are diverse, with both epibiota (plants and animals) and infauna. Given the paucity of bedrock habitat in Puget Sound, cobbles in these habitats harbor a large proportion of the algal beds seen. Clams often thrive in this sediment because it is hard for predators to dig to them. Eelgrass beds often lie just subtidally of these beaches where the substratum becomes less coarse. These beaches are used as feeding areas by cutthroat trout, juvenile salmon (chum and pink), fish-eating birds such as cormorants, grebes, loons, mergansers, and great blue herons, and bivalve-eating birds such as scoters and goldeneyes.

Habitat attributes

Class ID:

66

Class name:

Estuarine, intertidal, mixed coarse, partly enclosed, eulittoral

Length:

792.0 km (in WA)

Primary substrate:

Gravel

Secondary substrate:

Sand

Tertiary substrate:

Cobble

Substrate stability:

Semi-stable surface features

Substrate key details:

Some stable surface features (cobbles)

Wave exposure:

Semi-protected, Protected

Blue book classes:

Estuarine intertidal mixed-coarse: Open

Map/survey site examples:

Much of Puget Sound shorelines; in Shorezone, these sites are mapped as "partly enclosed" (66) rather than "open" (65). Also includes much of Sequim Bay, Discovery Bay (incl Beckett Point)